(Ukraine) – A campaign is underway to make the Russian military occupation of Crimea untenable without launching a ground assault, according to the commander directing the operation.
Robert Brovdi, call sign Madyar, the Commander of Ukraine’s Unmanned Systems Forces, broke his silence on the strategy in his first interview since the operation to isolate the occupied peninsula began.
“There is no fuel in Crimea. And I want to tell you, there won’t be, under any conditions,” Commander Brovdi stated. He detailed how Ukrainian forces are systematically targeting energy nodes, fuel supplies, and logistics to make the continued presence of the Russian military machine impossible. “We are creating conditions of intolerance for the worms’ stay on the peninsula. This is not a pill, it is a large beating, so that all the worm infestation that has accumulated in Crimea feels such great discomfort that it simply leaves that bridgehead.”
The commander said the objective is to close access routes for supplies while allowing an exit for personnel, including approximately one million migrants and collaborators he stated moved to Crimea. “We don’t touch the Crimean bridge. Let them flee across that little bridge, nonstop back to their Russia,” he said, using an expletive to describe their departure. He addressed the hardship inflicted on the local Ukrainian population.
“I apologise once again to all Ukrainian residents of Crimea for the inconveniences they now have to endure. They are restricted in the human benefits they usually had, such as electricity, communication, water supply, and energy provision,” he said. “But they are not in a worse situation than the residents of Kharkiv, Dnipro, Sumy, Zaporizhzhia, Nikopol, Kherson, and hundreds of other cities which are purposefully targeted daily. We do not allow ourselves to do that.”
Commander Brovdi described a pivotal moment when, in a 72-hour period, 21 fuel tankers were destroyed on approach to Crimea. He added that the current operation marks the first time in history such a campaign is being conducted without expending the lives of Ukrainian service members. He was speaking on a day when a blackout in Crimea had become a common occurrence, with partial power restored only to a small area near Kerch via a cable from Russia, a fix he vowed to overcome.
The commander’s interview, conducted by independent journalist Caolan Robertson, provided an unprecedented look into the evolution of the drone war. The approach originated not in a military laboratory but in a field outside Kherson in 2022. His unit of 27 men, lacking the ability to see the enemy shelling their positions, repurposed commercial drones to gain a tactical advantage.
“For three weeks we didn’t kill a single worm. Not only that, we hadn’t even seen him, but he constantly fired at us. The thought came to us that we needed to peek at what was happening there,” Brovdi recounted. A request to join a reconnaissance battalion was rejected by a commander from the old army school, who dismissed drones and demanded soldiers conduct foot patrols. So, his men began strapping homemade munitions from improvised grenades to Chinese-made commercial drones. They trained using condoms filled with water as dummy payloads. This small group’s innovation eventually grew into an entirely new branch of the Ukrainian military.
Beyond the tactical battlefield, Commander Brovdi explained the psychological dimension of deep strikes on Russian territory. The goal is to ensure that Russians can no longer ignore a war they largely support. “The Russians learned that these could be symmetrical actions. They learned what an air raid siren sounds like, not from films about the war of ’45, but really in their own ear,” he said. He noted the progression of Ukraine’s reach, from 200 km, then 500 km, then 700 km, and now up to 2,500 km deep into Russia. “There is not a single kilometre of European Russia left where a freedom loving Ukrainian bird does not fly today.”
He described a mass fuel deficit across Russia in July 2026 that, according to analysts, led to an average of 40 million daily internet queries by Russians trying to learn how to distil homemade fuel. “They are already adapting like those worms in a new atmosphere. This is a crazy nation of parasites. It must be isolated,” he stated. He wants the pressure of the strikes to force a “self destructive process” within Russia.
Brovdi articulated a clear five step plan for NATO allies, stating they are running out of time. First, the immediate creation of a buffer zone of drone operations from 0 to 5 km along the entire length of their borders. Second, the installation of a fibre optic network to connect launch sites, allowing a single operator from a distant command point to control 5, 10, or 15 drones simultaneously on the front line. Third, the urgent development of a mobile air defence system specifically to counter reconnaissance drones and long-range one way attack munitions, known as Shahed drones. He warned of a future where Russia launches 1,000 Shaheds daily.
“I don’t know a country in the world that would be ready to receive 1,000 drones on Monday, 1,000 drones on Tuesday, and Wednesday,” he said. “On Wednesday they will raise such a white flag that there won’t be a pole big enough for the size of that white flag.” Fourth, the creation in every country of a brigade from unmanned systems forces, with at least 300 crews capable of protecting 100 km of frontline. Fifth, the operational creation of 30 to 50 deep strike crews, a step he believes any NATO member state could complete by the end of the year.
For Brovdi, the war is an exercise in mathematics and collective intelligence, drawing on a competitive spirit fostered by his first teacher and the responsibility of a first chair musician in an orchestra. His unit has recorded 400,000 verified enemy targets and 110,000 verified eliminated enemy personnel.
“For me, it’s really mathematics. The expenditure of boards, the involvement of crews in an operation, preserving their lives and achieving the best result from their work, so they don’t risk themselves for nothing,” he explained.
Having personally become a priority target for Russian special services, the former grain trader and global traveller has placed his past life on hold. He revealed he is constructing a significant park of modern Ukrainian sculptures, a project that has continued silently throughout the war for security reasons, although he has only been able to visit it once.
Acknowledging that even if the war is paused by geopolitical agreements, it will not be finished, he stated, “Putin, his aggressive policy, and even his successors, if he is killed, drops dead or clones himself, all of them will still be mentally drawn to take revenge on the Ukrainians who humbled them before the whole world.” He concluded, “The life we had, none of us will have again.”
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